Is it too farfetched to think that some restrictions need to be put into place to protect workers?
Maybe this will be a bit too vociferous a denial of this idea, but allow me to be the first to say, HELL FUCKING NO. "Protecting" jobs by limiting technological progress is an absolutely horrible idea. The only time it's justified is if the "progress" would make things worse than the protection -- and that isn't the case, here. (Specifically, in this case, it's about "protecting" Americans' jobs versus the jobs of overseas labor.)
At worst, U.S. programmers may have to become more competitive -- or find other fields to work in. Just because the tech field pays a lot now doesn't mean it always will, and anyone who forgets that fact isn't going to get a lot of sympathy if the edifice crumbles.
Are you sure about that? I was under the impression that if someone unlawfully takes something from me that I own, I can legally take it back without breaking any laws. (If I have to trespass, commit assault, etc. in order to get it back, then I've broken those laws, but I won't have committed theft or larceny.)
How exactly would the law be defined such that taking an object that does belong to you is theft?
[in the future, Lisa is being sworn in] Man: I now pronounce you President of these United -- Reporter: Stop the inauguration! I just discovered our President Elect got an F in second grade gym class! [crows gasps; Lisa is handcuffed] Man: In that case I sentence you to a lifetime of horror on Monster Island. [to Lisa] Don't worry, it's just a name. [Lisa and others are chased by fire-breathing monsters] Lisa: He said it was just a name! Man: What he meant is that Monster Island is actually a peninsula.
Bowie, what are you smoking? The BSA does and has conducted these audits. How? By getting enough information from disgruntled former employees, they're able to convince a judge to give them a court order to conduct an audit, under the eyes of marshals (who are there to make sure the company in question doesn't interfere with the audit). The BSA has been around for a long time, and they've been at this a long time. They know as well as you do that they can't barge onto private property without a warrant, but they can get a warrant. That's the scary part.
Re:...and this is a classic Activision/ID ploy
on
Sim-Dud?
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· Score: 1
A couple things:
First, you misspelled "losing" as "loosing" several times in your post. This will impress nobody.
Second, id Software isn't in the business of selling games to players. id Software is in the business of licensing 3D game engines to other companies. The fact that they sell games is incidental; it's really advertising more than anything else, so that everyone can see the new engine they come up with (do you have any idea how many games use the Quake 2 and Quake 3 engines?).
The upshot is, they're not really all that concerned about the player community surrounding Q2 and Q3. Cheats will come up, yeah, but Carmack's been working on Doom 3 for the past three years; whatever happens with Q3 doesn't really affect him.
Also, you basically called them "n00bs" in one of the earlier sections. Did you expect that to impress them, exactly?
Re:Initial expense too high...
on
Sim-Dud?
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· Score: 1
Your math doesn't wash. MMOs are typically in development longer than a single-player game, have much more content to start, and then they have to support the server infrastructure continuously from that point on. A company might spend a few million dollars on the initial development of the game, and then another several hundred thousand dollars a month paying its continuing expenses (bandwidth, server hardware, server admins, live content team, etc.). The box cost offsets the development cost; the ongoing payments pay for the continuing costs.
Nobody would buy a game that cost $200 and came with 40 months free, because there's no way to know beforehand that you're going to want to play the game for that long. Even if it's a fantastic deal (which it is, at $5 a month), a lot of people are going to buy an MMO, play it for maybe a month or two (I lasted just under 3 months in Earth & Beyond before it just got too repetetive), and give up. Hell, EverQuest has only been out for 45 months!
Vaguely relevant sidenote: Carson Daly was actually a (live, real, local) DJ on KROQ-FM 106.7 in Los Angeles for a few weeks in about 1996 or thereabouts. Then he defected the MTV... and as far as I'm concerned, they can keep him.:) KROQ's not owned by Clear Channel, thank Bender, and here's hoping it stays that way.
Well, "downstream" usually refers to data coming from the ISP to you, and "upstream" is the other way (from you to the ISP). Most basic DSL plans have a 128Kb upstream and a 1.5Mb downstream, although if you have SDSL or some other setup where the upstream is larger than 128Kb, that could change things. Just making sure you have your terminology straight.:)
Well, it's almost certain that every copy downloaded without paying (i.e. pirated) would not translate into an actual sale if the download was prevented. A lot of "pirates" download mass quantities, regardless of what it is, just to have a large collection for its own sake -- they wouldn't be buying all the stuff they wouldn't normally listen to anyway, if they couldn't get it for free.
Never trust music industry claims on how much money or how many jobs are "lost" because of copying. Most of the monetary losses are due to large-scale, professional pirates who actually sell bootleg copies of the music, rather than casual Internet downloaders. Nonetheless, it's not very efficient to cripple the computer industry to prevent piracy, and it's not really efficient to be having law enforcement go after casual downloaders instead of (for example) worrying about violent crime, organized crime, etc.
That moment of quiet reflection is prayer. No God required.
Not according to any common usage of the word "prayer". You're certainly free to use it that way, but don't expect to be understood as meaning "a nonreligious mode of internal reflection" rather than "a supplication to or communion with a deity or object of worship".
There is nothing wrong with praying as long as it's not the only thing you do, and as long as you don't expect the prayer itself to have any direct results. The problem is that a lot of people honestly believe that praying, on its own, can solve problems. That's the issue.
I'm an atheist, and I feel sorry for the lost astronauts, but I would never call what I do "praying." The religious connotations are too strong in our society for the majority of people to understand that the thoughts I think have nothing to do with God, gods, religion, or worship. Calling the mourning I do "praying" is misleading at best.
In a more technical linguistic sense, let's look at the given usages of the word "prayer" (from dictionary.com"):
prayer (prâr) n.
1.
1. A reverent petition made to God, a god, or another object of worship.
2. The act of making a reverent petition to God, a god, or another object of worship.
2. An act of communion with God, a god, or another object of worship, such as in devotion, confession, praise, or thanksgiving: One evening a week, the family would join together in prayer.
3. A specially worded form used to address God, a god, or another object of worship.
4. prayers A religious observance in which praying predominates: morning prayers.
5.
1. A fervent request: Her prayer for rain was granted at last.
2. The thing requested: His safe arrival was their only prayer.
6. The slightest chance or hope: In a storm the mountain climbers won't have a prayer.
7. Law.
1. The request of a complainant, as stated in a complaint or in equity, that the court grant the aid or relief solicited.
2. The section of the complaint or bill that contains this request.
The first four usages all specifically refer to God, gods, and worship. The sixth usage is a completely different meaning, more akin to "chance" or "hope" (as is shown). The seventh meaning is specific technical jargon. Only the fifth usage bears any resemblance to a "secular" usage of "prayer", and even then, only usage 5.1 even comes close. But the usage there is meant as a specific, urgent request, not a mode of internal reflection.
Re:your process improvement has a flaw...
on
A Word a Day
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· Score: 1
it would be nice if posters gave a rat's backside about what they were saying, instead of karma-whoring by being the first one to post one of the same 5 comments that gets made on every story.
Yeah, but I was being realistic.;)
Re:Communication is important...
on
A Word a Day
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· Score: 1
That's why I included the convenient weasel words "tend to".;)
Re:typos correlate to time spent on the message
on
A Word a Day
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· Score: 1
I've (thankfully) made it a habit to always preview my/. posts at least once, and if I change anything after a preview, I (almost) always preview it again. Trivial changes (like editing a single letter in a four-word response) I may not preview, but anything nontrivial gets previewed at least a couple of times. I'm pretty anal about lexical stuff, and it's more or less reflexive at this point.
It would be nice if at least one preview was required by/., which (I believe) would increase the signal-to-noise ratio, but at least the way it is now, I can use most people's lack of previewing as a convenient filter to prejudge the likelihood that they're worth reading. It may not be perfectly accurate, but it correlates well.:)
Re:Communication is important...
on
A Word a Day
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· Score: 1
I've noticed a very strong correlation between lexical ability and logical ability. I think it's reasonable to claim that however difficult grammar may be, on the average, logical thinking is harder. Those who won't take the time to prepare their grammar aren't likely to merit my attention. It's a prejudice, but an informed one.
An extreme example is someone who uses no punctuation, no paragraph breaks, and no capitalization. Their logic may be impeccable, but it's so hard to read what they right that I may as well not bother. If they aren't willing to go to the effort of making their words readable, then why should I go to the effort of reading it?
Re:Communication is important...
on
A Word a Day
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· Score: 1
I'm aware of the distinction, although I tend to use the space-hyphen-hyphen-space format when writing online (as opposed to the "correct" hyphen-hyphen format) because I find it easier to read. I've never thought that squashing the dash between the words was as easy to read as leaving a space between it and the words it separates.
In formal writing (papers, specifications, etc.) I'm usually using a real word processor, so the dash is no problem, and I render it properly in that case. Thanks for pointing it out, though; keeps me honest.;)
Communication is important...
on
A Word a Day
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
A lot of people underestimate the importance of clear communication, not to mention the role of proper spelling. Want people to take you seriously? Those who have power tend to have education, and if you write poorly, they won't take you as seriously. The internal logic is, "If this person doesn't care enough to take the time to make sure the grammar and spelling are correct -- which are simple enough things to do -- then why should I take the time to read what they have to say, or care about it?"
I'm not saying that someone who spells poorly is stupid, or always wrong about things -- just that they're perceived that way. If you can't even learn to spell properly, what are the odds you can learn to think properly? Yeah, it's a gross oversimplification, but life isn't always fair.
It's a tricky question. If any unsolicitied email is treated as "using someone's computer without their consent," then if some random person emails you out of the blue because they saw on your website that you run (say) Linux and had a Linux question for you... well, you didn't solicit the email, so should their email be illegal? I wouldn't think so. Another possibility is that you get to decide whether an email is okay or not... except this can be easily abused. If someone sends you an email you don't like (but that isn't actually spam, like an MS fanatic hassling you about Linux), it wouldn't really be fair to claim that they're using your computer without your consent. (A possibly acceptable alternative form of this would be to treat only commercial emails as "using someone's computer without their consent.")
Given the structure and general functionality of the internet email system, it seems disingenuous to claim that an email address ought to be legally protected from receiving emails that you did not specifically solicit. I think a better solution is simply to regulate (which could range from minor restrictions on form and content, all the way to outright banning) unsolicited commercial email. One solution would be to require that all commercial email conform to certain header standards, so that it can be automatically identified and trashed if you don't like it (i.e. add an X-header, like "X-Commercial-Email"). There could be subtypes, as well: for example, you probably don't want to trash the email from your online banking account about account activity, but you might want to trash the monthly annoying newsletter they send out. (E.g., the first type would be tagged "X-Commercial-Email-Account-Activity", and it would be let through.)
Don't be an idiot. The title's an obvious parody of the kinds of news articles that show up whenever a computer beats a grandmaster at chess -- CNN blathers on about how computers are becoming intelligent, or some bullshit like that, and everyone who has a clue rolls their eyes and ignores it. Meanwhile, Joe Sixpack has his vague notions of a Terminator 2-like future reinforced by stupid reporting.
Not that/. is exactly a paragon of editorial quality, but there's no need to invoke the "Slashdot editors are trolls" subclass of karma whoring.
What if the original law said that it could not be changed for at least 50 years? Basically locking it in at 14 years, for a while... and then after a few decades, we look and see how it worked, and decide what to do.
Slashdot Mirror
At worst, U.S. programmers may have to become more competitive -- or find other fields to work in. Just because the tech field pays a lot now doesn't mean it always will, and anyone who forgets that fact isn't going to get a lot of sympathy if the edifice crumbles.
Are you sure about that? I was under the impression that if someone unlawfully takes something from me that I own, I can legally take it back without breaking any laws. (If I have to trespass, commit assault, etc. in order to get it back, then I've broken those laws, but I won't have committed theft or larceny.)
How exactly would the law be defined such that taking an object that does belong to you is theft?
Favorite Simpsons dialogue:
[in the future, Lisa is being sworn in]
Man: I now pronounce you President of these United --
Reporter: Stop the inauguration! I just discovered our President Elect got an F in second grade gym class! [crows gasps; Lisa is handcuffed]
Man: In that case I sentence you to a lifetime of horror on Monster Island. [to Lisa] Don't worry, it's just a name.
[Lisa and others are chased by fire-breathing monsters]
Lisa: He said it was just a name!
Man: What he meant is that Monster Island is actually a peninsula.
Bowie, what are you smoking? The BSA does and has conducted these audits. How? By getting enough information from disgruntled former employees, they're able to convince a judge to give them a court order to conduct an audit, under the eyes of marshals (who are there to make sure the company in question doesn't interfere with the audit). The BSA has been around for a long time, and they've been at this a long time. They know as well as you do that they can't barge onto private property without a warrant, but they can get a warrant. That's the scary part.
A couple things:
First, you misspelled "losing" as "loosing" several times in your post. This will impress nobody.
Second, id Software isn't in the business of selling games to players. id Software is in the business of licensing 3D game engines to other companies. The fact that they sell games is incidental; it's really advertising more than anything else, so that everyone can see the new engine they come up with (do you have any idea how many games use the Quake 2 and Quake 3 engines?).
The upshot is, they're not really all that concerned about the player community surrounding Q2 and Q3. Cheats will come up, yeah, but Carmack's been working on Doom 3 for the past three years; whatever happens with Q3 doesn't really affect him.
Also, you basically called them "n00bs" in one of the earlier sections. Did you expect that to impress them, exactly?
Your math doesn't wash. MMOs are typically in development longer than a single-player game, have much more content to start, and then they have to support the server infrastructure continuously from that point on. A company might spend a few million dollars on the initial development of the game, and then another several hundred thousand dollars a month paying its continuing expenses (bandwidth, server hardware, server admins, live content team, etc.). The box cost offsets the development cost; the ongoing payments pay for the continuing costs.
Nobody would buy a game that cost $200 and came with 40 months free, because there's no way to know beforehand that you're going to want to play the game for that long. Even if it's a fantastic deal (which it is, at $5 a month), a lot of people are going to buy an MMO, play it for maybe a month or two (I lasted just under 3 months in Earth & Beyond before it just got too repetetive), and give up. Hell, EverQuest has only been out for 45 months!
That depends... does it mean you admit to having seen Die Hard: With a Vengeance?
Vaguely relevant sidenote: Carson Daly was actually a (live, real, local) DJ on KROQ-FM 106.7 in Los Angeles for a few weeks in about 1996 or thereabouts. Then he defected the MTV... and as far as I'm concerned, they can keep him. :) KROQ's not owned by Clear Channel, thank Bender, and here's hoping it stays that way.
Well, "downstream" usually refers to data coming from the ISP to you, and "upstream" is the other way (from you to the ISP). Most basic DSL plans have a 128Kb upstream and a 1.5Mb downstream, although if you have SDSL or some other setup where the upstream is larger than 128Kb, that could change things. Just making sure you have your terminology straight. :)
Well, it's almost certain that every copy downloaded without paying (i.e. pirated) would not translate into an actual sale if the download was prevented. A lot of "pirates" download mass quantities, regardless of what it is, just to have a large collection for its own sake -- they wouldn't be buying all the stuff they wouldn't normally listen to anyway, if they couldn't get it for free.
Never trust music industry claims on how much money or how many jobs are "lost" because of copying. Most of the monetary losses are due to large-scale, professional pirates who actually sell bootleg copies of the music, rather than casual Internet downloaders. Nonetheless, it's not very efficient to cripple the computer industry to prevent piracy, and it's not really efficient to be having law enforcement go after casual downloaders instead of (for example) worrying about violent crime, organized crime, etc.
I'm an atheist, and I feel sorry for the lost astronauts, but I would never call what I do "praying." The religious connotations are too strong in our society for the majority of people to understand that the thoughts I think have nothing to do with God, gods, religion, or worship. Calling the mourning I do "praying" is misleading at best.
In a more technical linguistic sense, let's look at the given usages of the word "prayer" (from dictionary.com"):
The first four usages all specifically refer to God, gods, and worship. The sixth usage is a completely different meaning, more akin to "chance" or "hope" (as is shown). The seventh meaning is specific technical jargon. Only the fifth usage bears any resemblance to a "secular" usage of "prayer", and even then, only usage 5.1 even comes close. But the usage there is meant as a specific, urgent request, not a mode of internal reflection.
That's why I included the convenient weasel words "tend to". ;)
I've (thankfully) made it a habit to always preview my /. posts at least once, and if I change anything after a preview, I (almost) always preview it again. Trivial changes (like editing a single letter in a four-word response) I may not preview, but anything nontrivial gets previewed at least a couple of times. I'm pretty anal about lexical stuff, and it's more or less reflexive at this point.
/., which (I believe) would increase the signal-to-noise ratio, but at least the way it is now, I can use most people's lack of previewing as a convenient filter to prejudge the likelihood that they're worth reading. It may not be perfectly accurate, but it correlates well. :)
It would be nice if at least one preview was required by
I've noticed a very strong correlation between lexical ability and logical ability. I think it's reasonable to claim that however difficult grammar may be, on the average, logical thinking is harder. Those who won't take the time to prepare their grammar aren't likely to merit my attention. It's a prejudice, but an informed one.
An extreme example is someone who uses no punctuation, no paragraph breaks, and no capitalization. Their logic may be impeccable, but it's so hard to read what they right that I may as well not bother. If they aren't willing to go to the effort of making their words readable, then why should I go to the effort of reading it?
I'm aware of the distinction, although I tend to use the space-hyphen-hyphen-space format when writing online (as opposed to the "correct" hyphen-hyphen format) because I find it easier to read. I've never thought that squashing the dash between the words was as easy to read as leaving a space between it and the words it separates.
;)
In formal writing (papers, specifications, etc.) I'm usually using a real word processor, so the dash is no problem, and I render it properly in that case. Thanks for pointing it out, though; keeps me honest.
A lot of people underestimate the importance of clear communication, not to mention the role of proper spelling. Want people to take you seriously? Those who have power tend to have education, and if you write poorly, they won't take you as seriously. The internal logic is, "If this person doesn't care enough to take the time to make sure the grammar and spelling are correct -- which are simple enough things to do -- then why should I take the time to read what they have to say, or care about it?"
I'm not saying that someone who spells poorly is stupid, or always wrong about things -- just that they're perceived that way. If you can't even learn to spell properly, what are the odds you can learn to think properly? Yeah, it's a gross oversimplification, but life isn't always fair.
It's a tricky question. If any unsolicitied email is treated as "using someone's computer without their consent," then if some random person emails you out of the blue because they saw on your website that you run (say) Linux and had a Linux question for you... well, you didn't solicit the email, so should their email be illegal? I wouldn't think so. Another possibility is that you get to decide whether an email is okay or not... except this can be easily abused. If someone sends you an email you don't like (but that isn't actually spam, like an MS fanatic hassling you about Linux), it wouldn't really be fair to claim that they're using your computer without your consent. (A possibly acceptable alternative form of this would be to treat only commercial emails as "using someone's computer without their consent.")
Given the structure and general functionality of the internet email system, it seems disingenuous to claim that an email address ought to be legally protected from receiving emails that you did not specifically solicit. I think a better solution is simply to regulate (which could range from minor restrictions on form and content, all the way to outright banning) unsolicited commercial email. One solution would be to require that all commercial email conform to certain header standards, so that it can be automatically identified and trashed if you don't like it (i.e. add an X-header, like "X-Commercial-Email"). There could be subtypes, as well: for example, you probably don't want to trash the email from your online banking account about account activity, but you might want to trash the monthly annoying newsletter they send out. (E.g., the first type would be tagged "X-Commercial-Email-Account-Activity", and it would be let through.)
Why don't you just go look at the site, or read the linked discussion thread? I mean, are your arms just painted on, or do they actually function?
Don't be an idiot. The title's an obvious parody of the kinds of news articles that show up whenever a computer beats a grandmaster at chess -- CNN blathers on about how computers are becoming intelligent, or some bullshit like that, and everyone who has a clue rolls their eyes and ignores it. Meanwhile, Joe Sixpack has his vague notions of a Terminator 2-like future reinforced by stupid reporting.
/. is exactly a paragon of editorial quality, but there's no need to invoke the "Slashdot editors are trolls" subclass of karma whoring.
Not that
What if the original law said that it could not be changed for at least 50 years? Basically locking it in at 14 years, for a while... and then after a few decades, we look and see how it worked, and decide what to do.
"If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit." - W.C. Fields